Gateway Entertainment to launch initiatives about dementia, seniors
[SINGAPORE] As part of its 25th anniversary celebrations, Gateway Entertainment on Monday (May 5) said it will launch two initiatives this year, which will focus on seniors and the issues that they face.
The first one is a movie called BYM, starring a local and regional cast. It is about dementia and tells the story of the relationship between a senior with the condition and her caregiver.
The second initiative is Sunshine Festival held at Gateway Theatre, which Gateway Entertainment operates. From Oct 31 to Nov 7, the inaugural theatre festival for seniors will showcase three productions – although they are targeted to seniors, anyone of any age can attend.
Live It Up! is a musical about how a senior navigates his life as a new retiree. Meanwhile, Rewind is a monodrama – a one-person show – that touches on the topics of cancer, identity loss and hope.
There will also be a MidLife Sing & Shine! live concert, in collaboration with Hong Kong broadcasting company TVB, where TVB artistes will perform nostalgic hits. On Monday, Gateway Entertainment signed a memorandum of understanding with TVBI, the worldwide operating arm of TVB, to collaborate on future projects.
Besides the three productions, Gateway Entertainment will run workshops and talks with community partners such as Touch Mental Wellness for participants.
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Priscilla Khong-Espinosa, executive director of not-for-profit Gateway Arts and managing director of Gateway Theatre, said the idea for these workshops and talks is for families to come together and kickstart conversations about issues that the seniors in the family are facing. They can bridge generation gaps and build empathy for them.
She said: 'It's about having content that the older generation is interested in, making sure that it's contemporary and relevant, and also that families can come together.'
The launch of BYM and Sunshine Festival come on the back of Singapore's ageing population, added Khong-Espinosa. Singapore is set to become a super-aged society by 2026, with one in four Singaporeans aged 65 or above by 2030.
In its early days, Gateway Entertainment produced telemovies. BYM is its first feature-film project, and Khong-Espinosa hopes to use the movie as a learning and engagement tool on different aspects of dementia – from the perspectives of both the patient and caregiver.
There is a personal element for her too, particularly with BYM. Khong-Espinosa said that she and her family unit came together to help take care of her grandmother, who had dementia. Through this movie, she also aims to spotlight caregiver burden.
'It's about creating awareness. Nobody's talking to us about what we went through or the things that we faced… If you don't talk about it, you don't normalise it – then it becomes a hidden stress factor that everybody faces. By talking about it and creating more awareness, it provides more platforms for people to participate, or at least get the help they need,' she noted.
Previously, Gateway Entertainment ran Project Smile, an initiative where participants learned magic, volunteered and performed at community service centres, such as hospitals and day care centres.
'The idea was that we wanted to use magic as a tool to connect people from different community groups. We realised that if we teach them how to be confident and compassionate, it can actually bridge gaps, because magic becomes an icebreaker,' Khong-Espinosa said.
Project Smile started in 2002, but stopped around the time of the pandemic. During its run, it worked with schools to train tens of thousands of students in magic.
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